Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846

During the revolution that lost Peru to Spain, the Indians took part with the patriots, who deluded them with promises of a monarchy, and of placing a descendant of the Incas on the throne. Not clearly understanding the causes of the war, the Indians frequently turned their arms against their own allies, and killed all white men who fell into their power. Many provinces were entirely deserted by the Creoles and Metises, in consequence of the furious animosity of the coloured race. In Jauja, the Indians swore they would not leave so much as a white dog or fowl alive, and they even scratched the white paint from the walls of the houses. When General Valdos and his cavalry crossed the river of Jauja and attacked the Indians, the latter scorned to save themselves by flight, but threw themselves upon the lances with cries of "Mata me, Godo!11 Kill me!" Two thousand remained upon the field, the Spaniards not ceasing to kill till their arms were too tired to strike.

Dr Tschudi inclines to believe that sooner or later the Indians will throw off the yoke of the effeminate and cowardly Creoles, and establish a government of their own. Whether such a government will be able or allowed to maintain itself, it is difficult to say; although, as the doctor observes, why should it not, at least, as well as a negro republic in an Archipelago peopled by the most civilized nations of Europe? Since the separation of Peru from Spain, the Indians have made great progress in many respects; they have been admitted into the army, have become familiar with fire-arms and military manœuvres, and have learned the manufacture of gunpowder, materials for which their mountains abundantly afford. Their hatred of the whites is bitter as ever, their feeling of nationality very strong – their attachment to the memory of their Incas, and to their old form of government, undiminished. In spite of long oppression, they still possess pride and self-reliance. Besides the government forced upon them by the Creoles, they preserve and obey their old laws. Let a leader like Tupac Amaru appear amongst them, and there is every probability of an Indian revolution, very different in its results to any that has yet occurred.

Most Robinson Crusoe-like in its interest is the long chapter wherein Dr Tschudi details his forest adventures, and we regret that we must be very summary in our notice of it. With extraordinary courage and perseverance the doctor and a German friend made their way to the heart of the backwoods, built themselves a log-hut, and, despising the numerous dangers by which they were environed, abode there for months, collecting zoological specimens. Of the perils that beset them, Dr Tschudi's unvarnished narrative of the daily sights and nocturnal sounds that assailed their startled senses in those wild regions, gives a lively idea. Indian cannibals, ferocious beasts, reptiles whose bite is instant death, venomous insects, and even vampires, compose the pleasant population of this district, into which these stout-hearted Europeans fearlessly ventured. Of the beasts of prey the ounce is the most dangerous; and so fierce and numerous has its breed become in certain districts of Peru, as to compel the Indians to abandon their villages. We are told of one hamlet, in the ravine of Mayunmarca, that has been desolate for a century past on this account. The ounces used annually to decimate its inhabitants. More perilous even than these animals, to the wanderer in the forest, are the innumerable serpents that lurk beneath the accumulation of dead leaves bestrewing the ground. The most deadly is a small viper about ten inches long, the only species of the viper family as yet discovered in South America. The virulence of its venom kills the strongest man in the space of two or three minutes. The Indians, when bitten by it, do not dream of seeking an antidote, but at once lie down to die. Bats are exceedingly plentiful, and very large, some measuring nearly two feet across the extended wings. The blood-sucker or vampire (phyllostoma) finds its way in search of food into stables and houses. The smooth-haired domestic animals are especially liable to its attacks. With wings half open it places itself upon their backs, and rubs with its snout till the small sharp teeth break the outer skin. Then it draws in its wings, stretches itself out, and sucks the blood, making the while a gentle movement with its body, not unlike the undulations of a busy leech. The fanning motion of the wings described by some writers was never observed by Dr Tschudi. Although these vampires only imbibe a few ounces of blood, the subsequent hæmorrhage is very great, and full-grown mules sometimes die of the exhaustion caused by their repeated attacks. One of the doctor's beasts was only saved from such a fate by being rubbed every five or six days with turpentine and other strong-smelling drugs, which kept off the vampires. It has often been disputed whether these disgusting animals attack human beings. Our traveller deposes to their doing so, and cites an instance witnessed by himself. A bat (Ph. erythromos, Tsch.) fixed upon the nose of an Indian who lay drunk in the court of a plantation, and sucked his blood till it was unable to fly away. Violent inflammation and swelling of the Indian's head were the consequences of the trifling wound inflicted.

We must here make mention of the carbunculo, a fabulous animal, whose existence obtains credit in most parts of Peru. Wherever he went, Dr Tschudi heard stories of this creature, and met persons who asserted that they had seen it. It is reported to be of the size of a fox, with long black hair, and only to appear at night, when it glides slowly through the bushes or amongst the rocks. When pursued, a valve or trap-door opens in its forehead, and an extraordinarily brilliant object – believed by the natives to be a precious stone – becomes visible, dispelling the darkness and dazzling the pursuer. Then the forehead closes, and the creature disappears. According to other accounts, it emerges from its lurking-place with carbuncle displayed, and only conceals it when attacked. This strange superstition is not of Spanish origin, but of older date than Pizarro's invasion. Of course it has never been possible to catch or kill a specimen of this remarkable species, although the Spaniards have used every effort to get hold of such a creature; and in the viceroy's instructions to the missionaries, the carbunculo was set down in the very first rank of desiderata. Dr Tschudi vainly endeavoured to discover, with some degree of certainty, what animal had served as a pretext for the fable.

After a four years residence in Peru, and when preparing for a journey that was to include an investigation of all the provinces, and to last for several years, Dr Tschudi was seized in the Cordilleras with a nervous fever, which brought him to the brink of the grave. Upon his recovery, he found that long repose, both of mind and body, was essential to the complete restoration of his health. Such repose he could not be certain of granting himself if he remained in Peru, and he therefore resolved to seek it upon the ocean. He took ship, and reached Europe at the commencement of 1843, after an absence of five years. He greatly regrets not having visited every part of Peru, especially the historical city of Cuzco, and the forests of Urubamba. But his harvest of knowledge has been so rich and abundant, that he should not, we think, begrudge the remnant of the crop to the gleaners who may come after him.

"MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO."

Chapter I

"Our comingIs not for salutation: we have business."Ben. Jonson.

On the 9th of September 1741, shortly after the hour of nightfall, a silvery mist hung over the broad stream of the Danube, and the environs of the city of Presburg – at that time considered the capital of Hungary – and shrouded the earth with its grey veil; although the heavens above were bright and clear, and the stars shone cheerily and proudly, as if no earthly influence could damp or dull them. Before the St Michael's gate, which opens on the side of the town the most remote from the Danube, and on to the road leading into the interior of the country, and towards the first low ridge of the Carpathians which skirts Presburg to the north, sat a traveller on horseback – his ample cloak wrapped carefully about his person, as much, it would seem, to screen him from observation, as from the first freshness of the commencing autumn season, and his broad three-cornered and gold-laced hat pulled down upon his brow.

He had ridden, at the brisk pace, across the stone bridge which leads over a dry moat to the old gateway, and had suddenly checked his horse on finding the gate closed before him.

"Corpo di Bacco!" he exclaimed aloud, in a tone of intense vexation. "The gate is shut for the night – I feared as much."

"What's to be done!" he continued to murmur to himself, after a pause. "To wake the guardian of the gate, and demand an entrance, would be to excite attention, and subject myself, perhaps, to questionings. No, no! That, above all, must be avoided. And yet, see him I must to-night. Time presses. Should the devil, who has served me so well as yet, desert me now, and take flight, the coward! before a few inches of deal board, and a few pounds of hammered iron! Bolts and bars! Bagatelles! Fortunately the old fox has taken up his earth near the gate. If I calculate aright, the hinder windows of his lodging must look out upon the moat; and I will try whether I cannot come to speech of him."

"Fortuna, jade! Thou art propitious still, if yonder rays be those from the old ivy-owl's watch-lamp!" muttered the traveller once more to himself, as he looked towards a light, which apparently struggled to send its gleams through the thick haze, from a low window of one of the houses overhanging the dry moat, to the left of the gateway. "At all events, I'll even risk the venture; and if, after all, I am out in my reckoning, and should stumble either upon an amorous dame awaiting her adored, or a mad student seeking the philosopher's stone – should I appear as a spirit of love from above, or a spirit of darkness from below —Cospetto! I'll play my part to the life, and find an entrance to this cursed town, spite of locked gates and barred posterns! The Virgin be praised! I am no schoolboy at my first adventure."

"Allons, Briccone!" he cried, applying the spur to his jaded horse, which stood reeking thickly, in the misty air, from the effects of a long and rapid journey. "You must seek other quarters for the night, old boy!"

The animal snorted, as its head was turned once more from the gateway, and moved unwillingly, as if endeavouring to resist the seeming attempt to undertake any further excursion that night: but the way was not long which it was destined to travel. Among the clay-built houses which formed the suburb, the traveller speedily discovered the projecting whisp of hay, announcing that the hovel, from the doorway of which it was suspended, offered accommodation, such as it was, for man and beast. Summoning from the interior a sleepy lad, in a dirty Hungarian costume, of full shirt-sleeves and broad trowsers, which once had been white, and confiding Briccone to his care, he returned to the gateway of the town.

When he again stood upon the gateway bridge, the first care of the stranger was to stoop, and collect a quantity of small pebbles in the hollow of his left hand. Provided with this ammunition, he approached as near as he could towards the spot whence the light he had before remarked proceeded.

"A curse upon this rotten mist!" he muttered. "I can see nothing. Around and about is a fog from the devil's own caldron, as if it were cooked on purpose to blind me; whilst the stars are twinkling above, as if they squinted down upon my confusion, and laughed me to scorn. However, at all ventures, have at my mark!"

With these words, he flung pebble after pebble in the direction of the light. Several of the missiles were heard to rattle against the walls of the house; and a few others rendered a clearer ringing sound, as if they had struck upon glass. After a short space of time, the light disappeared almost entirely; and a window was heard to open. The traveller raised another pebble in his hand, with a smile upon his face, as if inclined to take a last random shot at the head which had probably replaced the light at the open window; but he checked his humour with a short low laugh, and coughed to attract attention. The cough was immediately re-echoed in a hoarse and hollow voice.

"That should be the old raven's croak," said the stranger to himself.

"Bandini!" he cried, in a low but distinct tone, through his hollowed hands.

"Hush!" rejoined the voice from the window. "Not so loud! Is it you?"

"Diavolo!" replied the traveller, approaching closer to the wall of the town, and speaking as low as possible. "Who should it be, man? But the gate is closed; and I have no mind to expose myself to the investigations of the gatekeeper's lantern, and all the cross-examination and tittle-tattle that may follow."

"I waited for you with impatience," pursued his interlocutor; "and when the gate closed for the night, placed my lamp at the window as a beacon."

"All right!" replied the other. "But what's to be done now, man?"

"Can you climb?" continued the hoarse voice.

"Like a cat or a Spanish lover," was the reply. "Perhaps I have no little in me of the first; at all events I have often tried the trade of the latter."

"Descend into the moat from the end of the bridge," pursued the personage at the window. "The passage is easy. I will provide for your ascent."

Following these short instructions, the stranger returned over the bridge; and catching from stem to stem of the few stunted trees that grew upon the precipitous sides of the descent, he clambered, without much difficulty, to the bottom of the steep. As he crossed the reedy and moist soil of the moat, the noise of a falling object directed his steps towards a part of the wall where a ladder of cords awaited him. Profiting by this aid, and grasping, where he could, the projecting stones of the rude masonry which formed the lower part of the house, the stranger mounted with ready agility to the level of a window.

"You have not chosen your quarters upon the town-wall for nothing, I am inclined to suppose, Master Bandini," he said, as he found himself in face of a dark form at the opening to which he had arrived.

"All things have their uses," was the laconic reply, uttered with a hoarse laugh.

In a few moments the stranger had squeezed his person adroitly through the low window, and stood in the interior of the room.

The apartment into which he had been thus clandestinely introduced, was faintly lighted by the single lamp which had served as a beacon; and the rays of this lamp, as they fell upon the dark walls, half revealed, in fantastic indistinctness, a variety of miscellaneous objects. Ranged upon shelves on either side of the entrance door, stood a quantity of jars and phials of different shapes, mixed with glass vessels, containing strange serpents and lizards, and human half-born deformities, preserved in spirits – all the materia medica, either for use or show, necessary for the establishment of a druggist-physician of the day. On the opposite side of the room, beneath the hard and slovenly pallet which served as bed, might be half seen, from under the covering, two or three chests, the iron clasps and fastenings of which, with their immense padlocks, seemed to tell a tale of well-stored treasures of moneys or papers, and of other avocations than those of doctoring and leeching. Above the bed hung the crucifix, that necessary appendage to the dwelling of a good and pious Catholic; but, whether by accident or design, the form of the Divine sufferer on the cross was now turned against the wall. A table in the middle of the room was covered with old books and papers; and before the chair, from which the inmate of the apartment had probably risen when surprised by the signals of his visitor, was a large volume, which he now precipitately closed, but not, however, without being remarked by the stranger, who smiled a significant smile upon observing this hasty movement.

But, if the aspect of the apartment was strange, stranger still was that of its occupier. He was a little man, at an advanced period of life, whose spare and shrivelled form might be fancied ill-calculated to support the large head which surmounted it. Was the head, however, ill-proportioned to the body, still more out of proportion were the large black projecting eyebrows, the huge eagle nose, and the swelled hanging under-lip, to the general contour of the head. His thick black hair was closely shorn to his skull, as if to develop more clearly these interesting features; and if powder had been bestowed upon it, in obedience to the fashion of the better classes of the day, it had been bestowed so sparingly, or had assumed a colour so closely assimilated to that of dust and dirt, as to escape the discovery of all eyes but those of a very closely investigating naturalist. No less doubtful was the colour of the long cravat tied loosely about his neck. His upper person was inclosed in a huge black widely pocketed coat and lappet waistcoat, both many ells too wide for his shrunken form; whilst his nether man disported at ease in a pair of black pantaloons and high boots, which seemed to incase the proportions of a skeleton. From the sleeves of the wide coat hung a pair of long dirty begrimed hands, which, without a doubt, belonged rightfully to the owner of the aforesaid skeleton shanks.

Far different was the appearance of his visitor. He was a tall well-formed man, between thirty and forty years of age. His dress, which he displayed as he threw aside his cloak, cut in the cumbrous fashion of the day, was that of a man of pretensions to a certain rank; and his coiffure, with its necessary appendage of pigtail, might be seen, in spite of his hasty journey, to have been arranged with care, and powdered. Although his person was prepossessing, there was, however, a certain dash of the roué in his appearance, and a look of design and cunning in his dark eyes, long fine-drawn nose, and thin lipless mouth, which would speedily have removed the first more agreeable impression of an observer.

"All's well that ends well!" said the stranger, as he removed his hat and cloak. "It is perhaps better, after all, that I should make my entry thus. I have ridden hard, Master Bandini, and Briccone carried me well; but the road was longer than I had surmised, and I had a matter or two to dispose of on my way."

"Better late than never, noble cavaliere!" replied the man addressed as Bandini.

"Hush! no names, man, until I be assured that we have no listeners here," said the cavaliere.

Without replying, the old man removed the shutters from a window, forming a thorough light to that by which the stranger had entered, and looked out into the winding steep descent which forms the first street of the city of Presburg from St Michael's gate. It was faintly lighted by a lantern, but empty of all passengers.

"How now, man!" said the stranger impatiently.

"Why! if it must be said," replied the old man, closing the shutter and returning; "I have a lodger here, in my apartment. But he is still without; nor will he yet return."

"A lodger!" exclaimed the other, in an angry tone – "and at such a moment! How could you be so incautious, Bandini? This is one of your miserly tricks: you would expose your best friends for a few miserable kreutzers more or less."

"Live and let live, is my maxim," answered Bandini with a growl.

The stranger shrugged his shoulders with vexation.

"And who is this lodger, man?" he cried.

"Only a poor Hungarian country noble," replied Bandini in a more cajoling tone. "A youth! a very youth! a poor unsuspecting youth! He has come, like all the other nobles of the land, great and small, to obey the call of her they call their King, to attend this Diet summoned at Presburg; and he occupies my other rooms with his servant – a rustic! – a mere rustic! – a rude untutored rustic!"

"It was ill done, Bandini," continued the stranger, with still evident marks of discontent. "A lodger in the house, when you must know that I need privacy! It was ill done, I tell you."

The old man only muttered something between his teeth by way of a reply.

"Have a care, man," resumed his visitor, "how you juggle with me in this matter. You are richly paid by my employers for the support you give me, and the concealment your house affords; but should evil befall us – be it through your treachery or your imprudence, it matters not —per Jovem, the evil shall fall a hundred-fold upon your own head. I swear it to you; and you know I am a man to keep my word."

"Jehovah! here's a turmoil about the mere miserable lodging of a poor youth!" growled the old man doggedly, although the rapid passing of a long skeleton finger over the tip of his huge nose betrayed a certain degree of nervous agitation.

"Master Bandini," interrupted the stranger, unheeding him, "I have a word to speak with you – and one that nearly concerns yourself, Master Bandini – before we proceed further in business."

"Look ye!" he pursued, in a more indifferent tone, throwing himself down on to a chair, and crossing his legs composedly, but fixing the man called Bandini at the same time with his keen eye. "Look ye, friend druggist, physician, usurer, miser, secret agent, spy – or whatever other name you bear in designation, avocation, character, or creed" – and he laid a slight emphasis on the word – "there are no friends so sure as those who are convinced we know then thoroughly – a right understanding is sympathy, amico mio, and sympathy is bond and union."

The old man looked through his beetling brows at his visitor without any evidence of trouble; but he ceased irritating the tip of his nose only to twitch more nervously at the sleeves of his coat, as if to give himself an air of composure and dignity by adjusting them, as a modern fop might do by pulling up his shirt-collar.

"Think you I have forgotten," continued the stranger with a slight sneer, "that when we first met in Italy – no matter upon what business, or to what intent – Master Bandini bore the name of Israeli, and that, when forced to leave that country – persecuted, as he himself would say, for some little matter of flagrant usury, and mayhap also of a drug or two that lulled some rich old uncle to a sleep from which he woke not, and made a spendthrift debtor his heir – he returned to the land of his birth, I will not say of his fathers, and, for reasons good, under another name and a foreign guise, thinking that the name of Israel, spite of its adopted termination, smacked somewhat too notoriously of his origin, his Jewish origin, Master Bandini?"

The Jew druggist tossed his heavy head with an expression that, however ill assured, was meant to say, "Well! and what then?"

"Think you I know not that, fearing the prejudices against his race might injure the gains of his various trades, perhaps also that the name he bore might recal reminiscences better forgotten for ever, he assumed a Christian appellation, passed for an honest Christian man —honest, humph!" added the stranger with a sniggering laugh – "and infringed the severe laws of Hungary, which compel all of his tribe to dwell within one prescribed street in each city, and wear one distinctive dress – laws that, if called into execution, would bring him contumely, imprisonment, ruin – ay ruin, Master Israeli – humph, I forgot – Bandini? Think you I have no eyes to see yon cross ostentatiously displayed to Christian visitors, now turned against the wall, with the contempt of one of your accursed race – a deed in itself a crime to merit mortal punishment?"

The Jew stole a glance at the cross, and was evidently moved.

"Think you I divine not," pursued his visitor, hastily snatching from the table the heavy book closed upon his entrance, and flinging it open upon his knees, "that this jargon of the devil is your Hebrew book of worship, in which Master Bandini seeks for rules of conduct for the further welfare of his soul – if so be he have one – in the persecution and torture of Christian men – a pretty religion, cospetto!– or may be, practises sorcery?" And the stranger laughed ironically at his own suggestion. "Think you I know not all this, Master Bandini?"